Tenacious Tait shrugs off pain to finish race

PARATRIATHLETE Sara Tait bravely battled through illness and health problems to complete the Gold Coast wheelchair marathon that doctors warned her not to do.

Tait struggled from the outset of yesterday’s race where she still managed to finish in a time of 2 hours 35 minutes and 19 seconds despite having to work through the race without the help of rival competitors as the single female participant in the race.

“It was probably about the 10km mark when I could see that she was struggling and that she probably wasn’t going to be at her best,” father and support cyclist David Tait said as medical staff assisted his daughter at the finish line.

“Last year she hit that spot like really hammering along and this year she was just turning. I knew it was going to be determination to get her home. She said she wasn’t feeling great. The last two days she has been a bit off and getting a bit of a sore throat and that sort of stuff. She was sick all the way through.”

The 19-year-old, who has cerebral palsy, has also dealt with hydrocephalus, a condition that causes fluid to accumulate on the brain, this year but still managed to compete in the Gold Coast and Yokohama legs of the World Paratriathlon Series, getting third and fifth respectively.

“She has got a shunt that helps drain that fluid but the shunt is not working so she got told by neurosurgeons at the Gold Coast hospital that she needs surgery and not to do any more sport,” Tait said.

“She said ‘no, stuff that’. This was only two months ago. She is operating on limited space. It makes her faint and she gets hot flushes, gets crushing headaches and all those things and just pushes on. Just the fact she can finish these things make me proud of her.”

Tait, who usually competes in paratriathlon races involving a 750m swim, 20km bike ride and 5km push, is still hoping to be the second Australian picked to compete at next year’s Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.